Always capitalize the first and last word in a title. Capitalize all the other words except for a, an, the, and conjunctions and prepositions of four letters or fewer.

This applies to titles of books, chapters, periodicals, poems, stories, plays paintings, musical compositions, and subtitles.

Examples: The Chronicles of Narnia
(The is the first word, so it is capitalized; of is not.)
Six Characters in Search of a Plot
(In, of, and a are short words.)

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
(Capitalize A because it is first word in subtitle.)

Capitalize the titles of courses when the course is a language course or when the title refers to a specific class. (In most schools the course would be followed by a number.)